


Kissing Draco Malfoy

by germankitty



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Salem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-04-30 02:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14486637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germankitty/pseuds/germankitty
Summary: Harry may have fantasized about kissing Malfoy for far longer than he was willing to admit. Now that he’d been given permission, so to speak, things didn’t quite work out as in his dreams. Or did they?





	Kissing Draco Malfoy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digthewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digthewriter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Halloween Excursion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12572332) by [digthewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digthewriter/pseuds/digthewriter). 



> **Disclaimer:** Not mine. I’m just playing with the toys in JKR’s sandbox.
> 
> The story this fic is based on is summarized as follows: “For a Muggles Studies excursion, the 8th years take a trip to Muggle Massachusetts for Halloween. Draco is scared. Potter is there too. No wonder, Draco is scared.” This remix picks up immediately after the final scene (quoted at the beginning); you don’t _have_ to have read the original, as there are no other really significant references, but I’d recommend doing it anyway – it’s good!
> 
> Dear digthewriter, you are such a prolific writer that even disregarding your WIPs and drabbles it wasn’t easy to pick a story to remix. But as soon as I read the final three lines of this fic, I knew I had to run with it. I hope you can forgive the fact that (obviously) the boys are still a bit younger than your general preference – which is mine, too, btw – and will enjoy my flight of fancy anyway. It’s been a pleasure! Also, thanks to the mods and as usual to C, my beta _extraordinaire_.

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_"I think the words you're looking for are: Can I kiss you now, Draco?"_

_"Oh," Potter said, sounding dumbfounded. "Can I kiss you now?" A moment later he added, "Draco."_

_"Yes," replied Draco._

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Harry stared at Draco, wide-eyed with surprise. The grey eyes met his steadily, holding a familiar challenge, but despite the darkness behind the ticket office Harry thought he could also read just a hint of uncertainty. Or maybe it was…hope?

He gulped, feeling as if a whole swarm of lacewing flies had been set loose inside his stomach.

“Uh, now?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “No, we’ll wait until after the Leaving Feast in June,” he huffed. “Of course _now_ , you prat!”

“Git,” Harry replied automatically, then caught himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just thought…” His voice trailed off uncertainly.

“Merlin, give me patience,” Draco muttered, then stepped forward and grabbed the lapels of Harry’s jacket, yanking him close until their chests and noses almost touched. The sounds from the carnival just beyond the little hut they were standing behind receded into meaningless background noise. “You thought…what, Potter?”

His breath puffed warmly against Harry’s cheek and a bevy of pixies joined the lacewing flies chasing around Harry’s innards. It was nerve-wracking and exciting and kind of scary and very, very _nice_ and…

Harry decided he rather liked the sensation and placed his wand hand on Draco’s shoulder, right at the collar. One finger actually crept up to touch the skin of Draco’s throat, just above the edge of his scarf. Then he blinked.

“Did you just call me ‘Potter’?”

Draco raised his right eyebrow in a way that he knew had irritated Harry for all of the seven years they’d known each other.

“It’s your name, isn’t it?”

Harry scowled. “You just told me to call you ‘Draco’. Which kind of makes sense if we’re going to do…this.” He gestured between them with one hand. The other, Draco noted with a secret thrill, was still plucking at his scarf, yea-close to curving around the back of his neck. 

“Fine. But if I do, you don’t get to continue calling me by my last name, either!”

Draco tilted his head, secretly delighted that Potter didn’t exactly seem to refuse him. A dozen possible replies flitted through his brain, but what came out of his mouth was pure snark – always his default setting, especially when dealing with this man.

“Now why in Merlin’s name would I want to stop doing that, _Potter_?” he drawled.

“Because it’s not fair, that’s why!”

“Fairness is for Hufflepuffs,” Draco muttered under his breath, then sighed theatrically. “Oh, very well. Harry, then.”

Despite himself, Harry felt his breath catch. His grip tightened on the fine wool of Draco’s coat.

“Say it again,” he demanded, inching closer.

Draco suppressed a triumphant smirk. “Say what again?” he asked, just to be a little contrary.

“My name,” Potter said, his green eyes blazing behind silver-rimmed glasses and a husky undertone in his light baritone voice. “Say my name.” He swayed even closer, tilting his head up so that he was close enough to brush his lips against Draco’s chin. “Please.”

It was that last, barely whispered word that did it. The grey eyes softened, their colour turning from cold silver to polished pewter, and Draco smiled in a way Harry had never seen before.

“Harry.”

Harry’s answering smile was blinding. He felt Draco’s arms sliding around his waist, perfectly aligning their bodies and lowered his head to bridge the scant couple of inches between them.

The first brush of their mouths against each other was electrifying. Draco’s lips were cool and slightly chapped due to the late-autumn chill, yet silky-soft and suffused with a promise of heat that warmed Harry all the way to his toes as his eyes drifted closed. A low moan escaped his throat and he instinctively angled his head to better savour the sensations.

Draco chuckled, the soft sound more felt than heard. “So eager,” he whispered, beginning to nip and nibble teasingly from one corner of Harry’s mouth to the other.

Harry hummed in agreement, simply revelling in the sensations. His first kiss with Cho Chang had been awkward and uncomfortable; his first with Ginny had been rather aggressive, demanding and in full view of the Gryffindor Common Room. Not at all what Harry had expected or even wanted, even though he’d enjoyed it once he’d got past the surprise.

Kissing Draco for the first time, though – it was exquisite, and Harry wanted _more_.

As if he were reading his mind, Draco tentatively licked at the seam of Harry’s lips. Harry gave a tiny gasp and let his mouth go slack, opening to the gentle thrust of Draco’s tongue.

The sky exploded.

They jumped apart. Wands in hand, they instinctively moved to stand back-to-back, ready to face whatever danger was coming.

“What the fuck?” Draco hissed, a touch of panic in his voice.

Harry was facing the fairground and could clearly see the multi-coloured sparks shooting into the sky among loud bangs and piercing whistles. He turned, grabbed Draco’s arm and laid his head against Draco’s shoulder as he tried to calm his racing heartbeat.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s only fireworks.”

“What?” Draco sounded somewhat panicky, not that Harry blamed him. The Battle of Hogwarts wasn’t that distant a memory yet and they were both still not quite recovered.

“It’s part of the Muggles’ Halloween celebrations,” Harry explained as the surge of adrenaline began to dissipate. “I think Hermione said it was mentioned in the official programme.”

Next to him, Draco’s tense muscles gradually relaxed as he took in the starbursts, catherine wheels and rockets lighting up the night in fiery streaks. “Fireworks,” he grumbled, giving the display a disdainful look. “Don’t the Muggles have any other colours than red, white and blue? The Weasley twins could do better than this even without their N.E.W.T.s!”

“Actually they do,” Harry said. “Not that I’ve seen many fireworks, but there’s yellow, pink, green…” A vague memory surfaced. “It may just be an American thing,” he mused. “I’ve heard they’re a bit obsessed with those particular colours.”

“Whatever,” Draco sighed and stowed his wand back into the holster hidden under the sleeve of his Muggle jacket. “This is _not_ how I envisioned things,” he huffed.

“Yeah, talk about a banging mood killer.” Harry grinned wryly. “They say if you kiss the right person for the first time, fireworks will be going off. I never thought to take it _literally_ , though.”

Draco scowled at him. “Very funny, Potter.”

Harry almost missed the minuscule crinkling of those silver eyes. He swallowed his first hot retort and affected his best pout instead. “Well, that didn’t last long, did it.” He heaved a deep sigh and let his shoulders slump.

Draco’s scowl deepened.

“What in Salazar’s name are you on about?”

A few days before his seventeenth birthday, Ginny had once told Harry that it was positively unfair how his eyes, in addition to their unusual deep emerald-green colour, were also framed by thick, long black lashes any girl would kill for. _“Pity one can’t see them properly behind your glasses,”_ she’d said. _“I’d need a bucketful of cosmetics and ages in front of a mirror to get that effect.”_ Unused to compliments about his appearance as he was, Harry had been deeply embarrassed. But then Ginny had added, _“On the other hand, when you take them off—”_ she’d plucked them from his nose and sat on his lap, _“and give me that look of yours…like now…”_

Harry still wasn’t quite clear what ‘that look’ actually was, but as the hour that followed her statement had led to the most intent make-out session it had ever been his pleasure to engage in, he wasn’t inclined to quibble. Instead, he took off his glasses, wiped his fingers across his eyes and looked at Draco from beneath half-lowered lids.

“You’re already calling me ‘Potter’ again,” he murmured oh-so-sadly. “Just because I made a teensy little joke…”

Draco rolled his eyes even as he grabbed Harry’s shoulders and hauled him back against his chest. “That ‘joke’ was atrocious and you know it, _Potter_ ,” he growled, planting an almost savage – and all-too quick – kiss on Harry’s mouth. “And don’t look at me like that!”

Grinning inwardly, Harry batted his lashes. “Look like what?”

Draco stared at him as if he’d suddenly turned into one of Hagrid’s pets. Harry held his innocent expression until he could see the Knut drop even without his glasses.

“You – you are _impossible,_ Potter,” Draco groaned, fighting his own reluctant grin when Harry began to chuckle. He shook him, just a little. “How on earth did you manage not to Sort Slytherin?”

“Um, because I begged the Hat to put me anywhere but?” Harry said sheepishly.

“You…what?”

“Well, you see, actually it offered to Sort me Slytherin first, but…”

“Stop it right there,” Draco told him with another, slightly stronger shake, looking equally chagrined and intrigued. “I think this is a story I’ll want to hear – but not now, and certainly not here.”

“Okay,” Harry agreed. “When and where did you have in mind?”

“Somewhere less noisy, warmer and more comfortable,” Draco muttered, wincing as yet another rocket whizzed over their heads with a piercing scream before it exploded in a shower of blue sparks behind the demon-spawned upside-down ride they’d been on earlier. “And preferably with lots of alcohol on hand. I doubt I’ll be able to stomach it sober.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harry replied. Their group was staying at a Wizarding inn near the historic Federal Street District; there was a cosy corner just off the lobby with a couple of wingback chairs and a fireplace, perfect for reading or quiet conversation. Surely they could buy some drinks to take along at one of the carnival stalls. “Shall we go, then?”

Draco looked at him for what seemed like a small eternity but was really less than a minute. “Very well,” he said at last and turned, walking back past the office building they’d been hiding behind towards the main thoroughfare.

Harry was thrilled that, as soon as the crowd of carnival goers started to swallow them, it was Draco who reached for his hand and wouldn’t let go.

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They made it back to the Tituba Guest House with a cardboard carrier-tray full of drinks; non-alcoholic, alas, as all of the vendors refused to sell them alcohol because by American law they were still underage. Draco grumbled about that, but as neither could produce appropriate ‘picture IDs’ and they certainly didn’t want to ask Professor Sinistra, the group’s chaperone, for help, Harry suggested they buy a selection of hot beverages instead.

Once they were ensconced in the reading nook, Harry cast a quick Heating Charm and handed the first cup over to Draco.

“Here you go,” he said with a smile. “I admit, it would be better with a splash of brandy, but even without it’s not a bad alternative .”

“I suppose,” Draco muttered. “Stupid law.” Still, he was grateful for the heat radiating from the styrofoam container. After warming his fingers for a few moments, he carefully pried off the plastic lid and inhaled deeply. Muggle or not, the rich scent of dark chocolate and hot cream wafting up from the beverage was rather universal…and pure heaven. He lifted the cup to his mouth—

—and nearly dropped it. Only his Seeker reflexes prevented the hot cocoa from splashing over the rim. Horrified, Draco stared into his drink.

Swimming right in the middle of the brown liquid, among small mounds of half-melted whipped cream, two white eyeballs with dark brown pupils were staring back.

“What the – Harry, you arsehole!” Revolted, Draco plunked the cup onto the small table in front of him. “Are you _trying_ to give me a heart attack? This is disgusting!”

In the other wingback chair, Harry was shaking with laughter. “Sorry, I – Merlin, your face!” He choked, but tried to suppress his giggles with sheer force of will as soon as he registered how furious and shaken Draco looked. Sobering quickly, he also set down his cup and reached for Draco’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, speaking softly as if he were soothing a skittish hippogriff. “I honestly didn’t mean to…to frighten you or anything.”

“I’m not frightened,” Draco said stiffly. “I just didn’t expect…what the fuck _is_ this, anyway?”

“It’s called Ogre Eyes Hot Cocoa; the vendor just added marshmallows with chocolate beans. They’re usually not that big, but the vendor said it’s their special Halloween version, for the kids.”

“It looks gross!”

“Well…yeah, I guess,” Harry said. “But that’s kind of the point of Halloween, isn’t it? I mean, over half of the foodstuffs at the carnival were made up to look icky even though they’re really perfectly normal – did you see the ‘Mummy Hot Dogs’ or ‘Severed Fingers’?” Harry had tried one of the pastry-wrapped sausages early on, before Parkinson had needed help looking for Draco, and had found them delicious.

Draco remembered being tempted by the savoury smell as he’d passed the stall. Curious to try a Muggle treat, he’d joined the queue, but one look at the full display was enough to make him beat a hasty retreat, any hunger or appetite gone. He supposed the ‘Mummy’ sausages with their little pastry turbans and mustard-dot eyes could be called mildly amusing, but those ‘Severed Fingers’ had looked disturbingly realistic – especially when served by someone wearing a Sweeney Todd costume who exhorted his customers to “polish them off”.

“Yes, and I wish I could un-see them. Eww.” He shuddered dramatically. “Who knew that a Hufflepuff teaming up with Muggles would be so gruesome?”

Harry’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”

“Remember that idiot Zacharias Smith? Back in the late 1840s, his great-granduncle Albert Richard Smith found records of a fourteenth-century French Dark Lord who committed a series of ritual murders. He wrote them up in a book, but Scriptorus Flourish refused to even touch it. Smith then found himself some Muggle co-writers, adapted it to a contemporary setting by renaming the character Sweeney Todd and changing the location from Paris to Muggle London. They also sensationalised the lot and published it as ‘romantic’ fiction,” Draco coughed. “According to Mother, the book was a childhood favourite of her Aunt Walburga’s.”

Harry groaned. “Why am I not surprised?” Seeing Draco raise a curious eyebrow, he explained, “I inherited Grimmauld Place from my Godfather. There’s a portrait of her in the hallway that nobody’s been able to remove yet. She’s…vile.”

“Better in your house than mine,” Draco winced, then smirked. “Anyway, it’s an open secret among the Sacred Twenty-Eight that the Smith family made their money off the theatre version.”

“Every time I think I have figured out this crazy world of ours, something like this pops up,” Harry said, shaking his head.

“Now you know how I feel about most things Muggle.”

They shared a rare look of complete understanding that warmed Harry better than any hot chocolate. The thought reminded him of their forgotten drinks. Picking his cup up again, he gave it a fleeting look. “Hey, it’s safe to drink now.”

Indeed, the marshmallows and chocolate beans had melted, leaving only some indistinct gooey swirls.

“Good,” Draco commented, draining his own cup with several deep gulps. He cast a jaundiced eye at the other beverages still on the carrier tray. “What else have you bought?”

“One’s a tea-based fruit punch, the other a non-alcoholic cider.”

Draco’s West Country soul cringed at the latter. “Sacrilege,” he muttered but reached for the cider nonetheless, gently heating it up with his wand before taking a cautious sip. “Marginally drinkable,” he declared at last, settling back in his armchair. “Okay, Potter, spill it,” he ordered. “Why in Merlin’s name would you argue the Hat out of Sorting you into Slytherin?”

“Are you talking to me?” Harry asked archly.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Harry, then,” he conceded with a small grin.

Harry grinned back, took a swallow of his own cider and cast his mind back to his eleventh birthday and September 1, 1991.

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“…and then the Sorting Hat told me, ‘Better be Gryffindor’, and that was that,” Harry concluded his tale.

Draco shook his head. “Incredible.”

“True, though.” Harry shrugged. “I didn’t know any better and let Hagrid’s and Ron’s prejudices influence me. Who knows, maybe I _would_ have done just as well in Slytherin.” He snuck a peek at Draco’s rather pensive expression. “Still doesn’t change the fact that you were a first-class prat back then, though,” he jibed gently.

“I’m sorry.” Draco grimaced, inwardly squirming over how spoilt and thoughtless he had been as a child. It shouldn’t have taken a war and living months on end in mortal fear for his and his parents’ lives to open his eyes. “Hopefully I’ve learnt better by now.”

“I believe so.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If you hadn’t, the…um… _fireworks_ earlier behind the ticket office would never have happened,” Harry said, reaching once more for Draco’s hand. He was thrilled to feel the pale slender fingers curl comfortably around his own.

“That’s something else we ought to talk about,” Draco murmured. “Don’t you agree?”

“I guess,” Harry replied, feeling himself blush. Blurting out that he fancied the man had been mortifying enough; he certainly didn’t fancy having to _talk_ about it now! He wished they could just go back to the kissing part – he’d _liked_ that first, small taste he’d had and wanted more!

A tiny smile curved Draco’s lips even as he brushed them against the back of Harry’s hand. He glanced briefly at the faint scars left from Umbridge’s Blood Quill. “ _‘I must not tell lies’_ ,” he whispered. “Earlier, you were quoting an adage that – figuratively speaking, of course – one would see fireworks if one kissed the right person. Considering that _actual_ fireworks went off when we kissed…”

“But we _didn’t_ ,” Harry exclaimed before he could stop himself. “Not really. I mean, we _started_ to, and I really wish we had because the little we did felt great, but…” He gulped and closed his eyes.

“Merlin, Harry,” Draco started, the suddenly husky tone sending shivers racing up and down Harry’s spine as he leaned forward and slipped his free hand around Harry’s neck, drawing him close. “Do you have an idea, any idea at _all_ what—”

They were interrupted by a gust of cold air from the entrance when Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones and Morag Macdougal let themselves in and crossed the lobby towards the staircase leading to their rooms.

Harry groaned. “Damn it!” They’d been so close!

Draco sighed and sat back. “So much for privacy,” he grumbled, checking his watch. “It’s curfew in fifteen minutes; that means the others will start coming in any minute now.”

“Yeah.” Harry sought the grey eyes, reading in them the same disappointment he was feeling. He wanted to continue their conversation, but the mood had been broken – and given their schedule for tomorrow, their last day in Salem, it was unlikely they would have another opportunity. “Guess we’d better head up to bed.”

“Unfortunately not together, I suppose,” Draco replied with a suggestive wink, got up and draped his jacket loosely around his shoulders. Picking up his remaining drink, he smirked when Harry choked and spluttered. “Don’t worry, Harry; your virtue is safe from me.”

“I wonder for how long,” Harry muttered as they climbed the first few steps side by side.

“At least for tonight.” Draco grinned when Harry sent him a rather skeptical look. “No promises for when we get home, though.”

“I don’t know whether to be reassured or terrified by that,” Harry replied lightly, following him down the carpeted hallway to the group’s cluster of rooms.

“You’ll just have to wait and see, then.”

“That’s what terrifies me.”

Draco stopped in front of room no. 4 and started fumbling for the old-fashioned key, shrunk and clipped to his watch chain; not an easy feat, what with trying to prevent his jacket from slipping to the floor and juggling his drink at the same time. Harry reached over and plucked the lidded cup from his hand. “Here, let me hold that.”

“Thanks.” Draco finally managed to free the key and returned it to its proper size with a murmured wandless _Engorgio_. “Another stupid custom; why do we have to use keys when a simple _Alohomora_ would serve as well and would be less cumbersome? It’s not as if the staff don’t know we’re wizards.”

Harry shrugged, taking a few steps inside. “This used to be a Muggle house; guess it’s all part of the history.”

“Still inconvenient. Hmph.” He threw his jacket on the bed closest to the door. Then he turned towards Harry, giving him a calculating look that morphed into a slow smile and made Harry’s heart race. “Put that down for a minute, will you?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.” There was a small shelf next to the door, just big enough to deposit both their drinks. He set the cups down and started when he caught Draco flicking his wand, pushing the door behind him into its lock with a soft snick and a whispered _Colloportus_. There was a look in Draco’s eyes now that set the lacewing flies and pixies to dancing in Harry’s stomach again.

“We don’t really have time for…for anything, Draco,” he said quietly even as his arms seemingly developed a mind of their own and wrapped themselves around Draco’s waist when he was being drawn against the lean body.

“I know. Ten minutes and counting,” Draco murmured, cupping Harry’s cheek. “But I know Theo and Blaise; they will stay out until the very last moment. And until then…” he gave Harry a rueful smile, “I’d very much like to continue where we left off earlier. Properly this time.”

Harry nuzzled into that warm palm, smiling back. “I think I’d like that, too.”

Later, neither could say who truly initiated the kiss – one second, they were staring at each other, the next their mouths were pressed together. Harry had thought it might be strange to kiss someone taller, even if it were only a couple of inches at best, but found it didn’t matter at all. Draco’s lips were doing the most wonderful things to his own, so Harry just went with the flow, nibbling and nipping as he followed Draco’s lead. Their tongues duelled and thrust, tangled and coaxed until they were both breathing hard. Harry moaned when Draco’s mouth slid sideways, across his cheek and down his neck to tease the pulse point just behind his ear before moving back up to start all over again.

Harry was awash in sensation, clinging to Draco’s shoulders, giving as good as he got until they had to break apart for lack of air.

Breathing hard, Harry buried his flushed face in Draco’s collar. Long fingers carded through his messy hair, sending tingles all the way down to his toes.

He sighed blissfully, tightening his arms as Draco’s pleased chuckle vibrated against his scalp. He burrowed closer, giving a fleeting thought to how Ginny’s softer curves had molded against him, but the memory was chased away almost instantly by the thrilling sensation of being held by someone who was as close a match to himself as he could wish for.

Draco’s husky voice whispered his name and Harry lifted his face up again to recapture those gently demanding lips, staking his own claim. Now it was Draco who moaned deep in his throat. The sound reverberated through Harry’s body, igniting his blood until it centred and pooled in his groin at last. He all but sobbed with sudden need, instinctively canting his hips…and felt a corresponding hardened length pulse against his lower abdomen. Harry stilled.

Downstairs in the lobby, an antique long-case clock began to chime a carillon. The sequence wasn’t long, maybe two minutes at most; then the movement would strike midnight, signalling curfew and their friends’ imminent return. For tonight, their time had run out.

“Harry, I—” Draco tried to kiss him again, shifting to brush his erection against Harry’s through their trousers. “Goldstein said there’s an empty room one floor up; maybe we could—” he started, breathing hard and sounding deliciously desperate.

Harry freed one hand – how hadn’t he noticed that it had slipped under Draco’s shirt and was now teasing the soft skin at the small of his back? – and laid a finger across the kiss-swollen lips, halting his words.

“Draco, no. Stop,” he murmured even as some part of his mind shouted at him in protest.

Draco stared at him, surprise and incredulity warring in his expression. “But…but why? Don’t you want to—”

“No, no – I mean yes, I do,” Harry reassured him quickly. “Just…not tonight. This is just going a bit faster than I’m comfortable with, is all.”

Draco searched his eyes for a few moments, then nodded reluctantly and loosened his hold. “Fine,” he sighed, disappointment visible in every line of his body as he took a small step back.

Before he could complete the motion, Harry stopped him by gripping his hand, lifting it up and pressing a kiss into the palm. “Hey, don’t.” He waited until Draco’s posture relaxed. “Thanks for accepting my decision just like that,” he said, letting his own regret show in both voice and look. “It means a lot. But…let me explain?”

“O-okay.” Drawing a shuddering breath, Draco gathered his customary composure around himself like a cloak. “Can I at least hold you?”

"Sure." Harry drew him into a loose, comfortable embrace, resting his head against Draco’s shoulder. “Like this?”

“Better, anyway,” Draco mumbled into the messy dark hair. “You probably should make it quick, though. Time’s almost up.”

“Easier said than done.” Harry snorted when Draco just raised a sardonic eyebrow. The ‘oh really?’ it signified couldn’t be clearer.

“Don’t be that way,” he told him fondly, tugging a strand of blond hair. “I’ll try – and promise to discuss things with you when we have more time and privacy. Fair enough?”

“Do I get another choice?” Draco huffed when Harry simply shook his head. “Didn’t think so. Very well, go ahead.”

“Um, you know I’m often kind of pants at explaining stuff; I’m pretty much flying blind here. So just bear with me, okay?” Harry warned. At Draco’s nod, he continued. “Right. Spark notes version: kissing you is…well, _amazing_. I know I want to do more of it – hell, I know I want to do more of…of _anything_! With you, and to you.”

“I have no idea what these ‘sparkly notes’ you mentioned are, nor do I care,” Draco muttered when Harry stopped to marshal his thoughts. “But know that I agree completely.”

“That…that’s great,” Harry said, shaken and shaking with longing. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is…what I _don’t_ want to do is kiss you or do whatever we’ll end up doing behind closed doors.”

For the life of him, Draco couldn’t resist. “You want to have public sex instead, Harry? I’m shocked!” It wasn’t the best line of innuendo he’d ever used, but it helped ease the disappointment and resulting tension between them.

Harry groaned and aimed a half-hearted swat at Draco’s arm which he easily dodged. “Prat. Damn, that came out all wrong. No, I most definitely am _not_ going to have public sex with you – or anyone else, for that matter. Ever. What I meant to say is…” He inhaled deeply, releasing Draco as he began to pace even as he continued, haltingly at first, searching for the right words. “I want…I want you and me to _share_ this thing between us, only just somewhere private where we can take our time to explore. I want something better than coming in our pants or a quick handjob, or feel ashamed or embarrassed afterwards when it's over too fast because we had to worry about getting interrupted. We both deserve more.”

Harry paused a moment to gauge Draco’s reaction. He appeared to listen intently, so he went on.

“But that’s for later, really. For now, I want to go on kissing you. I want to learn what kind of kisses you like, where you like to be kissed and how. I want to kiss you before we fall asleep and again in the morning when we wake up, when you’re happy, or sad, or – or everything, really. I want to memorise the taste of your mouth and of your skin and…and everything else, too, if you’ll let me,” he finished in a rush, a fiery blush staining his cheeks as he stood before Draco, letting his eyes inadvertently drop to Draco’s crotch at that last bit. He refused to be flustered even more by the prominent bulge he saw there.

Draco was stunned into silence. This was not at all what he’d expected to hear. He knew with sudden conviction that everything Harry had told him just now, with surprising eloquence, he wanted as well. He opened his mouth to say so, only to be stopped when Harry wrapped both arms around his neck and spoke against his lips.

“So,” Harry whispered, sounding hopeful. “Can I kiss you like _that_ , Draco?” A moment later he added, “Maybe…even for always?”

“Yes,” replied Draco.

**λ ´ ´ ´ ´ λ**  
**/ \ ´ ´ ´ / \**  
**( ´ \,,,,,,,/ `)**  
**´•. ¸(Θ Θ)¸ .•´**  
**(x)**  
**Д ̄ Д**

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** Just a few bits ’n' pieces of background info:
> 
> The inn, Tituba Guest House, is a product of my imagination - named after [Tituba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tituba), the first person to be accused of practising witchcraft (and later convicted and executed) in the Salem Trials. However, the location I’ve chosen in the historic [Federal Street District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Street_District) of Salem is real.
> 
> “Ogre Eyes Hot Cocoa” was taken from the [Tasteofhome](https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/ogre-eyes-hot-cocoa) website, and the hot dog recipes can be found here: [Mummy Hot Dogs](http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/mummy-hot-dogs) and [Severed Fingers](http://www.aibento.net/2011/10/17/severed-hot-dog-fingers/).
> 
> [Albert Richard Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweeney_Todd#Literary_history) is one putative contributor to the penny-dreadful story first featuring Sweeney Todd, originally called “The String of Pearls: A Romance”. The legend of a medieval serial-killing barber is also part of the character’s literary history.
> 
> Lastly, the Ascii art used as scene breakers was taken from [Whitehound](http://members.madasafish.com/~cj_whitehound/Fanfic/ffn_how-to.htm)’s page.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Fic headers](http://hd-remix.tumblr.com/post/174631358139/drarry-fic-kissing-draco-malfoy) and a [pull quote](http://hd-remix.tumblr.com/post/174635434208/true-though-harry-shrugged-i-didnt-know-any) have been posted to tumblr. Help promote the fest by liking and reblogging!


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